Britain takes its heaviest battering yet as violent storm sweeps in, leaving
at least two dead and 500,000 homes without power

Britain took perhaps its heaviest battering yet on Friday night as a violent storm swept in, leaving at least two people dead and 500,000 homes without power. The high winds and torrential rain caused travel chaos throughout the country in time for the half-term getaway. Even the Queen’s hydroelectric power supply at Windsor Castle was knocked out by the floods.

James Swinstead had taken a cruise of a lifetime with his wife Helen to escape the British winter. But on day 41 of a 42-day voyage that took them to the Amazonian rainforest and back, Mr Swinstead, 85, was killed when a freak wave smashed five windows in the ship’s restaurant. Mr Swinstead, a father of two from Colchester, Essex, was hit on the head by debris and killed. “He was the fittest of men,” a family friend said. “He was 85 but he was still playing tennis. They went on the cruise to avoid the weather and this is what has happened.”

The wave crashed into the Marco Polo ship during Friday’s lunchtime seating in the Waldorf restaurant. The restaurant is on the sixth deck but the wave smashed glass in five windows, injuring more than a dozen other passengers who mainly suffered cuts and bruises. A 74-year-old woman was airlifted off the ship and was being treated in a French hospital after hitting her head.

A spokesman for Cruise & Maritime Voyages, which owns the Marco Polo, said an investigation was under way into why the windows smashed as the ship sailed 50 miles off the Brittany coast and into the English Channel. “It is so sad that on the 41st day of a 42-day voyage, this has occurred,” said a company spokesman. “We are devastated and our hearts go out to the family.”

The ship was due to dock at about midnight tonight in Tilbury, Essex, where family members will meet a grief-stricken Mrs Swinstead, 82, off the cruise.

In London, at 11pm on Friday night, Julie Sillitoe, 49, a mother of three from north London, was driving her minicab — a Skoda Octavia — through Holborn in central London when a chunk of masonry dislodged by high winds fell on to her car.

Mrs Sillitoe was pronounced dead at the scene and two passengers were injured. In a statement police said: “A front portion of the building had collapsed on to a Skoda Octavia car. The car was stationary at the time.” The road, one of the busiest in central London, remained shut for much of the day as accident investigators examined the scene.

More than 100 miles away a 20-year-old woman and her unborn baby died in a car crash on the A465 in south Wales with the atrocious weather being at least partly blamed for the accident.

Sophie Williams, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, was being driven back by her finance Ben Morgan from a Valentine’s meal when a car coming in the opposite direction lost control and careered into them.

“Everything I love has gone,” Mr Morgan said. “I am still unable to take in what has happened. This time yesterday we were laughing and excited about our baby coming soon”.

The deaths prompted Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, to tweet: “My thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of the people killed in the storms last night.”

The death toll grew when Bob Thomas, 77, a father of two, died in hospital on Friday night. He was rounding up his hens on Wednesday in Caethro, Caernarfon, when a tree fell on him. Mr Thomas was transferred 100 miles to a specialist unit in Stoke-on-Trent but died from head injuries.

In a dramatic — and at times surreal — weekend, perhaps no event was odder than the one confronting residents on Saturday morning in Oatridge Gardens, a cul-de-sac in Hemel Hempstead, Herts.

Police ordered an evacuation after a giant sinkhole — 20ft deep and 35ft wide — appeared beneath No 1 Oatridge Gardens. Its owner Sheriff Ebrima Sidibeh, 38, a barber in Watford, and two lodgers were woken from their sleep and the road closed while gas and electricity supplies were switched off.

Carla Rance, 35, a mother of three who lives next door to two houses that now face demolition, said: “There has been a lot of movement and I have not felt safe in the house for some weeks. I was woken by the police who said there was a sinkhole. They told me and the children to get out.”

On the south coast in Hampshire, couples had a Valentine’s night meal to remember for all the wrong reasons. Thirty-two diners had to be rescued by a combined force of the Army, fire brigade and police from a seaside restaurant after its windows were shattered by shingle thrown up by 80mph winds. The Marine restaurant at Milford on Sea in Hampshire was engulfed by 30ft waves and effectively cut off. Diners and staff told of their terror as they fled the scene under the protection of a rescue team.

Diners and staff clung to each other in a chain as they waded through the flooded restaurant. One staff member likened the rescue to “Noah’s Ark” with diners, being led out two by two.

On Saturday, daylight revealed the devastation. Abandoned vehicles appeared to have been flung about the car park, swept down the road by the tidal surge, while the restaurant’s sea front windows had been smashed. Large craters had opened up in the restaurant’s tiled floor. One witness said the scene resembled “a war zone”. Damage is estimated at £250,000.

With diners sitting in the restaurant upstairs, witnesses described how they came under “bombardment” from rocks thrown up off the shore while waves crashed through the downstairs building.

“It was horrific, absolutely terrifying,” said Ryan Smith, 21, the restaurant’s duty manager. “We heard stones flying at the window and then there was a loud crash from downstairs. I went to the top of the stairs and could see water up to knee-height gushing into the downstairs area.”

James McCrossan, 20, one of the chefs, said it was as if they were “under bombardment”. He said: “They led people out two by two — it was almost like going into Noah’s Ark. The place was full of glass and we had to wade through two to three feet of water downstairs to get to the Army truck.”

St Valentine's Day diners had to be rescued from the Marine Cafe at Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire (ROBIN JONES)

Further along the coast in Brighton, the shingle beach was shifted several yards inland so that visitors on Saturday were greeted with the eerie sight of benches, pavements and roads covered in pebbles two to three feet high. Brighton Sea Life Centre was flooded to a depth of a foot but its manager said “its resident creatures” had survived intact despite a loss of power. In Cambridgeshire, a house disappeared, collapsing into rubble and crushing a car in East Park Street in Chatteris. Two fire crews searched for casualties but nobody was trapped in the house or the car.

More than 85,000 homes remained without power on Saturday night. The Energy Networks Association, the industry body for electricity suppliers, said more than half a million homes had been cut off from the beginning of the latest storm on Friday night but that 410,000 properties had been reconnected in the course of 24 hours. “Engineers are, of course, working flat out to get people back on,” said Tim Field, a spokesman.

Even the Queen’s hydroelectric power supply at Windsor castle was put out of action by flooding although back-up from the national grid kept the castle lights on. Train services were cancelled or severely delayed with one company advising passengers not to travel, while flights were disrupted. All train services west of Plymouth were cancelled, while a landslide near Redhill in Surrey affected lines south of the capital.

The high wind and storm overnight have blown down a house in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire (PAUL MARRIOTT)

Network Rail said there were also heavy delays on the West Coast Main Line as engineers worked to repair damage to overhead lines caused by 120 fallen trees. Services out of London’s Paddington station remain restricted with just 20 per cent in operation as a result of flooding at Maidenhead, Berkshire. South West Trains cancelled all its services although some lines reopened on Saturday night. First Great Western, which runs services from London to the West Country and to Wales, advised its passengers not to travel “until further notice”.

Five aircraft declared emergencies after being unable to land at Heathrow and Gatwick airports because of high winds on Friday night. Jonathan Swain, an ITV reporter on one of the flights, described the aircraft “swinging” like a “paper plane” over London.

Sixteen severe flood warnings — meaning there is a danger to life — remained in place on Saturday night, 14 of them on the River Thames and two in and around the Somerset Levels. A further 151 flood warnings were in place along with 251 less serious flood alerts.

Experts predict this winter will be recorded as the wettest since records began, although there was hope from forecasters that the rain and wind will ease off this week. With the ground saturated and the water table at record levels, flood waters in some areas are not likely to recede until March at the earliest.

The continued flooding led to rising tensions in some of the worst-hit areas. Runnymede borough council, which is responsible for flood relief in some of the worst-hit areas of the Thames Valley, said its ageing and predominantly female workforce meant local authority staff were not up to the task of distributing sandbags.

Police were called to the flood relief centre in Egham in Surrey after one female volunteer became angry that not enough was being done to help victims.

Patrick Roberts, leader of Runnymede borough council, said it had “about 350 employees, the average age is in the mid-50s, probably 60 per cent are women — we are not set up to cope with national disasters of this sort. We do have to sit and think afterwards as to how we can have a volunteer force that can be mobilised next time this happens, because there will be a next time and we ought to have a plan.”

On Saturday night David Cameron renewed his pledge to do everything possible to help those affected by floods and storms. “My heart goes out to anyone who’s been flooded,” said Mr Cameron on a tour of Chertsey in Surrey, one of the worst areas affected by the flood.

There was some good news on Saturday with a Met Office weather centre predicting calmer weather this week, although flooding remains a huge risk given the height of the water table and the saturated ground.

A spokesman said: “We still have a yellow warning for rain in the south of Britain. There is more rain and wind forecast for Sunday and Monday but the wind is much weaker. There is a yellow warning for rain for the south-west of England. The weather is still unsettled but it is much less marked than it has been.”

Paul Leinster, of the Environment Agency, warned that the risk of flooding would “continue for many communities in southern parts of England over the next few days. We ask people to remain vigilant and take action where necessary”.